This invention relates to a display for indicating the operated condition of a controller which coordinates and controls the operation of the controlled system such as the industrial equipment, the production line or the chemical plant, and an apparatus for generating the contents of display.
There has been widely used a controller referred to as a programmable controller for coordinating and controlling the operation of the controlled system such as the industrial equipment, the plant production line and the chemical plant. This controller holds the signal and data of the controlled system and classifies it into an input signal, an output signal, an auxiliary signal, a count value, a timer value, and numerical data in accordance with the kind of signal or data. For example, the on/off signal indicating the opening or closing of a switch or a valve is an input signal or an output signal. The number of products is a count value, the clock value for clocking the operation timing of the machine is a timer value and the temperature or pressure is numerical data.
Such signals and data are stored in a memory referred to as a device within the controller (hereinafter generically called a device), wherein the controller coordinates and controls the operation of the device in accordance with the contents of a control program schema.
Herein, the control program schema is a program which is also held in a memory within the controller to provide the specified operation of the controlled system, and is created using a control program schema generator by the control designer. Herein, the programming language for use may be a Relay Ladder which is well known and widely used.
FIG. 22 illustrates a user operation screen of the control program schema generator. The device is assigned with a device symbol for discriminating the kind of signal or data. In FIG. 22, an input signal 120 is designated by X, an output signal 121 by Y, an auxiliary signal 122 by M, a count value 123 by C, a timer value 124 by T, and numerical data 125 by D. Further, to distinguish a plurality of signals for a certain device symbol, the number called as a device number is given following the device symbol.
Reference numeral 51 denotes means for entering a sequence circuit symbol into the control program schema, wherein on depressing a desired one of the buttons 511, 512, 513 and 514 having the title of circuit symbol for Relay Ladder, device selecting means 126 for setting up the device symbol and the device number will subsequently appear, as shown in FIG. 23. On depressing an OK button 129, the device selecting means 126 accepts the set-up contents from selecting means 127 for the device symbol and selecting means 128 for the device number, and then is closed.
A display will be described below. To inform the device values of the controller to the operator who is on the production line, a display or a display unit referred to as a programmable display is widely used. The display has not only a display screen such as a CRT or liquid crystal display on which the device data is displayed, but also has input means such as a touch panel to allow the operator to enter a start command of the machine or an operation command for setting up the number of products into the display to pass it to the controller.
The contents of display appearing on the display screen are varied in accordance with the specifications of the controlled system, and created by the screen designer, using a display drafting apparatus with the basic constitution as shown in FIG. 19. This design operation of the display contents is broadly called as drafting.
The display drafting apparatus will be described below. A user operation screen of the display drafting apparatus has a drafting area 1 on the display screen and display component selecting means 2 for selecting a display component which is a constituent of the display contents, as shown in FIG. 20.
The display components typically include a lamp component 21 having a lamp mode particularly indicating the on/off of the device, a numerical value component 22 directly indicating the numerical value of the device, a meter component 23 and a graphic component 24 having a meter or graph mode for graphically indicating the numerical values, a character string component 25 for conveying a message to the operator in accordance with the device data, and a touch key component 26 for entering an input signal from a touch panel into the display, the display component selecting means 2 being provided with the buttons for selecting them.
Further, the display component selected is required to have some attributes set up in respect of the display, such as which device value to indicate, the detail mode for the shape or color of the display component, or the additional functions fulfilled on the display. It is an operation screen of FIG. 21 that is opened by depressing each display component button constituting the display component selecting means 2, and on this operation screen, there are provided device selecting means 110 for providing the attribute of the display component, display mode selecting means 113, and display function selecting means 114. The device selecting means 110 is further constituted of device symbol selecting means 111 and device number selecting means 112. In FIG. 21, this operation screen can be opened particularly by depressing a touch key component button 26 in FIG. 20.
FIG. 24 shows a procedure for proceeding with the drafting by a conventional display drafting apparatus. In FIG. 24, this procedures starts from step ST30 of selecting the display component by the display component selecting means 2 as shown in FIG. 20, and then continues to step ST31 of arranging the selected display component at a predetermined position in the drafting area, to steps ST5 and ST6 of setting up the display mode or display function of the display component arranged, and to a device selecting step ST1 of selecting which device data to display for the arranged display component. The device selecting step ST1 can be divided into a step ST11 of selecting the device symbol and a step ST 12 of selecting the device number. Herein, the steps subsequent from the step ST30 of selecting the display component do not necessarily occur in the order as shown in FIG. 24, but the step ST30 of selecting the display component should exist at the beginning of flowchart of FIG. 24.
In this way, the procedure of FIG. 24 which starts drafting from the step of selecting the display component is natural, considering that the determination of which component is to display on the display screen is the first operation in drafting, and is very effective in the cases where the drafting procedure of apparently designing the screen at first, and then setting up the device value for display to each component is followed.
However, the above drafting procedure, which only takes the drafting into consideration, is particularly a design procedure to be taken when the control designer creating a control program also works as the screen designer, resulting in a problem that this procedure is unsuitable in the cases where the designer performs the drafting concurrently while making the control program.
In this case, the control and screen designer (hereinafter simply referred to as a designer) will begin to contemplate which operation of a certain device the controller coordinates and controls and how to indicate it on the display.
If the conventional display drafting apparatus is used in accordance with such a design procedure which begins with taking notice of a certain device, it is required to perform a device temporary memorizing step ST40 of once memorizing this device in the designer's head, or noting it down on another draft or memo at the time of paying attention to the certain device, as shown in FIG. 25.
Thereafter, the drafting work is conducted from a step of selecting the display component as in FIG. 24, but if a device selecting step ST1 is reached, it is required to proceed through a temporary memory calling back step ST41 of calling back the device memorized at the device temporary memorizing step ST40 to the steps ST11 and ST12 of assigning the device symbol and the device number in FIG. 25.
In this way, the temporary memorizing step ST40 for the device of notice may take a trouble of noting down the device on another drawing or something, if it is actually noted down, and the temporary memory calling back step ST41 may also take a trouble of having to see the draft on which a temporary memo has been made, resulting in lower operation efficiency in view of the control program design and the overall drafting design, because the things memorized in the head may be forgotten.
In the process where the control program design and the drafting are separately performed, there was a problem with the conventional display drafting apparatus that the drafting operation as shown in FIG. 24 can not be started at the stage where the mode of the display component, that is, the apparent specification of the screen has not been particularly determined.
This is because the display component selecting means 2 of FIG. 20 presupposes that the mode of the display component is provided, for example, when the numerical data is displayed within the device in FIG. 20, it is impossible to perform the selection step ST30 of the display component which is the first step of FIG. 24, unless it is determined whether this is in the numerical value mode, the meter mode or the graphical mode.
In practice, even at the stage where the control specifications of the controller are first embodied, the control program is completed, and it is determined which device data is displayed on the display, the mode of each display component for the display may often have not been determined in some cases. In such cases, the drafting operation of the display may be hung up from the first stage.
Further, it is required that the device to be displayed is also input into the control program schema generator to allow the operation to be coordinated and controlled, but the control program schema generator may include device setting means such as the device selecting means 126 as shown in FIG. 23, for example. Since this means is separate from the device setting means 110 for the display drafting apparatus of FIG. 21, there was a problem that the designer must input at both the display drafting apparatus and the control program schema generator to set up the same device, and master two operations for both. Also, the device may have a comment for explanation of its role appended thereto, and setting this comment must be made with the control program schema generator and the display drafting apparatus, which would cause the same problem.